Bill 115

The looming LCBO strike threat has suddenly gotten all sorts of Ontarians anxious about a potentially dry next few days (or weeks). LCBO workers, who are represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), voted 95 per cent in favour of striking, and the deadline is approaching. Yet a strike is in no one's best interests. Now, this entire scenario would change if the availability of alcohol were to be completely diminished. This inconvenience may cause citizens to want an alternative to the LCBO in the event it is rendered incapable by a strike.

Contrary to what a variety of columnists and MPPs would have you believe, the public sector is not the enemy. You are the public, and your servants want to serve you in exchange for appropriate compensation and benefits. So to the Government and Opposition I say this: language matters. We are not terrorists. And you're either with us or against us.

Many of us feel that the only way we have left to show our displeasure is to withhold the work that we normally do for free. Are you willing to do the same amount of work for 10 per cent less pay? How about 20 per cent less, 25 per cent less, 35, 50? When would your dignity and self-respect kick in and make you say "just hang on a minute. I'm a trained professional, and I don't work for free."

TORONTO - Word late Friday that public high school teachers can resume after class sports and clubs was exactly the news newly-minted Ontario Premier Kathleen needed after a disastrous first week in t...

Whatever we may think of the Liberals' new leader Kathleen Wynne and her glamorous status as Ontario's first lesbian premier, the fact remains that Canadians have once again witnessed the extraordinarily undemocratic spectacle of a tiny group of partisans installing a ruler over them.

Our children are not being put first; they are being cheated. If we care about the public good, teachers must be respected and compensated fairly to attract the best and brightest. With the decimation of school board budgets, parents who can afford to do so may pull their kids out of the public system.

It is both more feasible and cheaper to help existing teachers improve their skills than it is to replace them with new people who might be better at the work. While pay for results is a seemingly attractive concept, virtually nobody in modern economies is currently paid based on measured outcomes as is being proposed for teachers.

The teachers' union is in business to advocate on behalf of their members. As a result, the teachers' union positions on all sorts of issues are predetermined. The teachers' union is still trying to get more money for its members. Business is as usual.

TORONTO - Ontario's governing Liberals are axing a controversial law that has outraged public school teachers, just a few days before the party is set to choose a new premier.The change, which will ta...

TORONTO - An Ontario labour board ruling that declared a planned elementary teachers walkout an "unlawful strike" came too late to avoid a morning of confusion and uncertainty for students, parents an...

As the Ontario Liberal Party prepares to host delegate election meetings across the province this weekend, all signs point to a victory for Kathleen Wynne. She continues to demonstrate the organizational strength and critical levels of support needed to become the Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party. Glen Murray chose to drop out of the race and endorse Wynne prior to delegate election meetings where delegates, who will ultimately elect the next leader, will be elected themselves. Assuming his supporters follow him, Wynne's advantage going into this weekend's delegate election meetings is significant.

Some unions have engaged in strike action that has closed schools, restricted learning for students and created an unstable learning environment. It has been stressful and chaotic for many students and parents. Then those same union leaders asked the government not to move ahead with collective agreements, yet they had no other solutions to offer -- except more disruption. That's why, on my advice, the Lieutenant Governor in Council has put in place collective agreements for all school boards and unions that were unable to deliver ratified and approved collective agreements by the deadline.

Ontario's Liberal government is using controversial Bill 115, The Putting Students First Act, to impose contracts on teachers in the province. However, once the contracts are imposed, Bill 115 will be...

TORONTO - Students across Ontario face more uncertainty when they head back to class next week, after the province's cash-strapped Liberals outraged unions by forcing two-year contracts on 126,000 pub...

TORONTO - Premier Dalton McGuinty won't say whether he'll force new contracts on Ontario's public school teachers, but is promising that his government will have more to say Thursday about "the path f...

The deadline for Ontario teachers and their local school boards to come to agreements slipped by at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday without either side reaching an understanding. According to Education Ministe...

TORONTO - The deadline for Ontario's teachers to reach agreements with their local school boards is tonight at one minute before midnight.Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten is urging those schoo...

TORONTO - Ontario's education minister says the province has reached a tentative agreement with the union that represents school support workers.Laurel Broten says the template deal with the Canadian...

TORONTO - Public elementary teachers offered Friday to end the rotating strikes they staged across Ontario this month to protest Bill 115 if the Liberal government would agree not to impose new contra...

TORONTO - School support workers are joining teachers in threatening to stage a one-day protest if the governing Liberals force a collective agreement on them in the new year.The Canadian Union of Pub...

TORONTO - Education Minister Laurel Broten is advising the union representing public elementary school teachers to focus on local bargaining, not on more job action.Broten also warns any strike action...

The government and teachers need to be talking about getting Ontario schools working again. Our kids' education is too important. Disruptions in the classroom need to end. In August, Dalton McGuinty recalled the Legislature to force Bill 115 onto teachers and education support staff.

UPDATE: A one-day strike will take place Wednesday in the Hastings-Prince Edward District School Board and Lakehead District School Board, according to the CBC. TORONTO - Elementary teachers in the N...

TORONTO - The Liberal government is violating the collective bargaining rights of teachers and school support staff, four large unions charged Thursday as they launched a legal challenge of legislatio...

Bill 115 is unfair. Pre-emptive law making denies the rights of employees "just in case." How can we inculcate the habits of democracy into our students when they observe and experience unreasonable restrictions on the rights of the very people who are charged with teaching them about fairness?
What if teachers behaved like this government? Imagine children being told that they will not be allowed to seek permission to create a club because the school doesn't trust them to make the proper arrangements -- nor to go out for recess because they might misbehave. It would not take long for someone to shout, "That's not fair."

TORONTO - Three powerful unions representing about 191,000 teachers and school workers declared war Tuesday against the Ontario government and threatened to withdraw from extracurricular activities af...

With the Liberal government's bill to ban strikes and freeze the pay of Ontario's teachers moving towards final passage in the legislature, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned it will...

TORONTO - A national civil liberties group is joining the fight against a controversial bill by Ontario's cash-strapped government that would force a wage freeze and cuts to benefits on tens of thousa...